[odc]

Too bad the FCC does not think about space pollution. The astronomers were already very fed up with the Starlink constellation interfering with their observations, now they will have to deal with twice the number of satellites. Not to mention the risk of collision in space which keep going up.

[jessriedel]

The FCC and other regulatory agencies have carefully considered the impact of these constellations on astronomy and the risk of collisions, and they have (correctly imo) decided that the benefits strongly outweigh the costs, especially with the significant work these companies have done to minimize the adverse effects. If you have a particular issue with the principles the FCC used, or an objection to their computations, then please share that.

[thecupisblue]

Quite wild, an American only agency/comission can say - "yeah, put 3,236 more sattelites in low-Earth orbit" and ruin the sky for the rest of the world. Do we not have an international body that would decide upon such rulings? With how fast this will escalate, we'll need to have one soon.

[lefstathiou]

I’m pretty sure we do. The issue will boil down to who should control (or be controlled) by it. I can imagine resistance from say NASA to have it’s policies determined by nations physically incapable of reaching space.

And the outcome of the debate will be a function of your values versus someone else’s, which could then spiral into whether or not one persons desire for a nice view of the night time sky is more important than someone else’s access to affordable high quality internet (which is increasingly being viewed as a “right” these days).

Who knows how this all plays out but my gut says that we are observing oligopolies in the making. The first 2-5 will get licenses and then no one else, ever again.

[sitkack]

If you go down the route of something being a right, but having oligopolies is _really_ bad, then it would seem that we should globalize space based internet. And why not? Civilization could transform in amazing ways if you can form a digital stream between any two locations on earth.

We already globalized highly accurate time and location, why not data streams?

[lefstathiou]

Location is dominated by the US via the GPS system which our government has unilateral control over (hence competing constellations).

Part of me also sees a potential National Security security angle to an oligopoly of US-based companies providing satellite internet everywhere. Countries are increasingly putting kill switches on their internet. In a period of conflict, where information flow is likely to be highly managed, its convenient to bypass all that infrastructure with satellite internet. I’m sure these satellites can pick and choose their frequency. No doubt we could point these things at North Korea.

[wcoenen]

> Do we not have an international body that would decide upon such rulings?

The International Telecommunications Union comes closest.

[Rebelgecko]

>FCC does not think about space pollution

Orbital debris mitigation is an essential part of an application sent to the FCC

Things they care about:

* Will your satellites survive an uncontrolled re-entry? What parts of the satellite won't burn up in the atmosphere? Will any surviving debris have more than 15 joules of kinetic energy when it reaches the ground? If so, what are the odds of injuring a human?

* How will your satellites deorbit? If the satellite fails before you can deorbit it, how long will it take to deorbit naturally?

* How will you avoid collisions with other satellites?

etc. It's true that the process doesn't take into account light pollution, but that's just one of the many forms of pollution to worry about

[seibelj]

I’m supposed to “think of the astronomers” when billions of people will get cheaper internet and advance humanity? Astronomers can find ways around this, we can’t stop progress for 0.0000000001% of the population.

[AQuantized]

The night sky isn't only available to some elite group of people. Although it's certainly difficult to see in cities due to the extremely high levels of light pollution. I recall an anecdote about power going out in a major city and residents calling the police up to report bright lights in the sky they had never seen before.

We should be trying to control our light pollution and space litter instead of increasing it, however. Seeing the galaxy with naked eyes shouldn't be alien to everyday people.

The reality is even quite poor countries are able to secure high quality internet for reasonable cost with appropriate policy. This isn't an otherwise unsolvable problem.

[jrott]

Thinking about space litter is a long term thing for other satellites as well. There comes a point where it starts making harder to guarantee that other satellites won't be affected.

[cblconfederate]

there are already many satellite internet companies. Where are the billions you are talking about?

[bamboozled]

Are you entitled to clean air when 0.000000000001% of the population can make billions from selling fossil fuels ?

[dakna]

Air pollution results in a higher death rate and is a public health issue. Light pollution is certainly a problem, but probably not on the same scale.

[bamboozled]

This point I'm making here is that it's really just a matter of perspectives.

[jessaustin]

Even if one might quibble with the premise, parent's point is that the fortunes of the many outweigh those of the few. Your point is what... the converse? I don't think I can agree.

[bamboozled]

That is only because it’s the view of some peope this will be of net benefit to the world, flossing over some of the more obvious problems we are seeing the Internet cause today. Surveillance, disinformation, interference in democratic process to name a few.

[lend000]

On the other hand, soon space will be so accessible that any serious astronomer will be able to deploy a cubesat to assist in imaging and observation.

But I agree that this is an interesting dilemma. Perhaps the low earth orbit satellites should be limited to certain bands around the globe (certain coverage regions in the case of Starlink), so that there remain pristine skies in more remote areas: internationally agreed upon "Natural Sky Preserves" or something of that nature.

[wcoenen]

> so that there remain pristine skies in more remote areas

These pristine skies do not exist. There are already many satellites in polar orbits that intentionally pass over all points on Earth (e.g. for observation, or for the Iridium satellite phones). If you spend an hour stargazing in a recliner during reasonable viewing conditions, you will likely see a few passing overhead in the north-south direction.

[Rebelgecko]

A 15 megapixel smarphone camera on a cubesat is not going to be comparable with ground based imaging

[mhh__]

A cubesat to replace an enormous ground based telescope?

[wincent]

This photo was doing the rounds a few days back showing starlink interfering with ground-based space photography: https://twitter.com/djulik/status/1286053695956881409

Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_debris

[seastonATccs]

The photo was disingenuous. Astronomers stack photos to remove interference. The photographer did the exact opposite.

[wincent]

I don't know about how the photo was originally presented, but the tweet that I linked explicitly says the frame is "17 30-second images of the comet added up", so it's hardly disingenuous.

The impact of Starlink on astronomical observation is in dispute and by no means is a settled matter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink#Criticism

[cthalupa]

He's saying the photographer specifically stacked the frame to increase the interference of the satellites. The same basic technique can be used in either direction - astronomers already use it to remove the thousands of satellites and other causes of interference in the night sky.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgMZa6G-q34 - a basic example using it to remove ISO noise

Edit: Actually, you can even see some satellites in the shot when he sets the layers to 'lighten' that are totally gone when he finishes the stacking.

[kerng]

Isnt this just using long exposure?

[catalogia]

No. A single long exposure would only show maybe one or two of those satellites. That's numerous exposures stacked on top of each other, such that every satellite visible in any of them is in the final result. This is completely backwards from how photo stacking is meant to be done (it's meant to remove satellites not visible in all of them.)

[kerng]

Very interesting, thanks for sharing this. This indeed should be pointed out clearky by whomever creates such images - seems quite manipulative using this to make a point.